Pages

Friday, March 15, 2013

Sepia Saturday: To Mercersburg and Beyond

Sepia Saturday challenges
bloggers to share family history through old photographs.

This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt depicts the world’s
leaders at the Potsdam Conference. Those
men in their dark suits gathered around the peace table at the end of World War
II make for an imposing presence. What
a contrast to my merry band of vacationers in white gathered around a picnic
table 17 years earlier.

August 1928
I don't know what that mark is all about.
Velma Wooding and her friends are on a picnic.
I wonder what is in that jug - tea? lemonade?

These same people appear in a number of photos dated
August 1928 in a scrapbook that belonged to my great-aunt Velma Davis Woodring.

Olive Williams

Velma’s good friend Olive is identified in one photo and featured prominently in others,

Mr. Williams

and one photo
identifies a lone subject as “Mr. Williams.”

I cleverly deduced that this must be the same Olive
Williams who visited Velma for a week in 1925, the same Olive Williams who
wrote to Velma’s mother begging her to allow Velma to extend her visit with
them so that Mr. Williams could take the girls to Gettysburg.

Daddy and Mother wants to take the girls to Gettsburg
[sic] next week and so I am writting [sic] and asking you if Velma might stay
another week. Daddy has already planned

the trip for them.
That isn’t any longer than I stayed with Velma. So please let her stay. Mother and daddy both wants her and Virginia
to stay so we can take them on that trip.

Closing, hoping to hear from you in a favorably reply to my question.

With love,

Olive

The purpose of the visit in 1928 appears to be a simple
vacation. Velma and Woody had been
married little more than a year. Summer
was quickly coming to a close and Velma would no doubt start teaching school in
the fall. So why not go for the gusto
and take a road trip to see her old pal Olive in Martinsburg, West
Virginia.

It appears Mr. Williams had planned another trip for the
girls – this time to Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania.

Left: Velma Davis Woodring
Right: Olive Williams

But why Mercersburg Academy? I have no clue. It was not Velma’s alma mater, nor Olive’s. Velma’s husband had attended college, but I
believe he went to Shepherd College (now University), not Mercersburg.

Mercersburg Academy Chapel
1928

Maybe the beautiful chapel simply attracted
tourists just as visitors to Colonial Williamsburg enjoy a stroll through the
campus of William & Mary despite having no ties to the school.

Whatever the reason, it’s quite clear that Velma was
excited about seeing Olive again, and she wanted to remember the day with lots
of pictures.

Just studying the photos to make sense of them increased
my curiosity about Olive Williams. So I
did what any amateur genealogist would do: I plugged her name into Ancestry, guessed at a
birth date of 1908, same as Velma’s, and entered Martinsburg, West Virginia as
a residence. A family tree appeared. And there it was - a picture of Olive. Those dark eyes are so distinctive that I was
fairly certain I had found her.

Olive Williams
photo courtesy Candi Keiter Johnson

Census records for the Williams family showed three
girls, a match to one of the August 1928 photos.

The Williams Family
Olive, her father Robert, her mother Rosie,
and sisters Helen and Mary

The contributor is still active on Ancestry, so I sent
an email seeking confirmation that I had found my great-aunt’s good
friend.

Bingo! As it turns
out Olive’s granddaughter did not recognize Velma’s name, but she called her
aunt who actually remembered Velma as Olive’s “great friend.” She even has the elephant teapot that Velma
gave Olive for her wedding to Harry “Moe” Keiter in 1930. (Elephant teapot! That sounds like Velma. I wonder if the tea flowed through the
trunk.)

Through the miracle of our “virtual roundtable,” faces
once hidden from the camera turned to reveal themselves more clearly.

38 comments:

You do have some wonderful family photographs and it is so great to be able to piece together a piece of social history. Do you know where the picnic took place or if it was in honour of a birthday or just a nice summer's day?

I'll bet that tea did pour through the trunk, and it certainly would have been a tea pot my mother would have had if she could have. Amazing fun isn't it when you get confirmation of your family's history. A fine collection too, it's always fun to see your family and read your stories about them. I like your opening photo, and so happy that you went this light-hearted and fun way for your post!

Absolutely! It's funny at the start of this week I told myself I'd visit all the posts as they first came in, yours was one, and I also saw Peter's but I managed again to let far too many slip by! I started that tradition of not wanting to view any posts until mine was complete, (so others didn't blur into my own post!) but our Sepia posts are really building up by Saturday!

Another splendid example of Sepian sleuthing, Wendy. I agree, the eyes are a dead giveaway. Those photographs serve to keep that great friendship alive, and it's a perfect example of how snapshots of "unidentified" people in a family album can turn out to be most important to putting the flesh on our ancestors' lives. I think this sort of research, and the documentation that accompanies it, is so important, and applaud your efforts. Thanks for sharing the story.

I remember the snapbook, these snapshots from nearly a century ago provide a fascinating insight of everyday's life. I'm used to see only single old photos, your series of pics are way more interesting. Love the pic of Velma and Olive with the 1920s hats in front of the chapel.

Thanks for dropping by, Wendy!!You mentioned Kevin's socks, LOL, I wanted to mention them as well but didn't. My cousin mentioned to me that it looks like her father, man on the right, is boring everyone as usual!!!!

Doesn't it figure - you go to the trouble of finding an appropriate photo and telling a good story about the family friends and their famous daughter, and what do we notice? A toothbrush and a pair of socks!

Wendy, this is so cool! Congrats on finding Olive's granddaughter. Now of course comes the question...does she or anyone else in her family have photos of Velma? Wouldn't that be a treat?

And I love the letter Olive wrote to Velma's mom asking permission for Velma to stay just a little bit longer. Can't you just hear Velma and Olive's conversation beforehand? Velma to Olive: "If I ask my mom, she'll say no. If you ask her she'll say yes." And so, Olive was off to write a letter. :)

Search This Blog

Award Free Zone

About Me

My name is Wendy. About twenty years ago, I helped my mother research the Jolletts. Since retiring from teaching, I have expanded my research which I share here. When I’m not looking for my own family, I index for FamilySearch and the Greene County Historical Society.
Welcome to Jollett Etc. Please leave a comment to let me know you were here. If you have more information or believe we are related, EMAIL ME at wendymath at cox dot net